Essential Personality Traits for SMB Owners

By | Small Business

While it’s true that just about anybody can be successful if they put their minds to it, certain personality types find the path to success easier to trod than others. The good news is even if you weren’t born with these essential personality traits for SMB (small or medium business) owners, you can develop them. Doing so is just as vital as having email for business.

Faith

There will be times when you’ll have to carry on in the face of unfavorable odds. In those times, faith, born of your desire to succeed, will carry you over the obstacle. A positive mental attitude is absolutely essential to success. If you think you can, you’ll try. If you think you can’t—you won’t. Also seen as confidence, faith in your ability to succeed is probably the most important of these traits.

Humility

With that said, you have to be careful to avoid having that faith come across as arrogance. You’re going to need people to help you along the way. Folks tend to respect quiet, unrelenting confidence. They abhor loud, obnoxious arrogance.

Don’t be THAT person.

Acknowledge those who help you and show gratitude. Remain grounded when success comes. Show grace in the face of acclaim and be humble about your talents.

Goal Orientation

The best way to accomplish any seemingly monumental task is to break it down into steps. But you must have a clear idea of what you’re trying to achieve to do so.

With goal setting, you can approach your endeavor bite by bite, rather than feeling you need to devour it in one great gulp. This also gives you a yardstick by which you can measure progress and milestones from which you can derive a sense of achievement along the way.

Passion

One of the easiest ways to be successful is to find something you love to do, learn everything you can about the subject, then set about monetizing what you’ve learned. Having a passion for what you’re doing makes it feel less like work and more like enjoyment. Earning a comfortable living doing something you love to do is a more than worthy goal.

Resilience

Everything you try won’t be successful the first time. Thomas Edison is reputed to have said he didn’t consider his unsuccessful attempts at the light bulb as failures; he considered them learning ways the idea wouldn’t work. While there will always be lots of reasons something won’t go, all you need to find is one way it will. You have to be willing to keep trying until it reveals itself.

Listening

Yes, the idea of the solitary figure who fashions a new reality from the depths of their imagination with their own hands is a pervasive one. While these individuals tend to be thought of as solitary figures, they generally aren’t. Steve Jobs didn’t invent the iPhone, he just recognized a great idea when he heard one.

Most successful entrepreneurs are geniuses with many helpers. However, they have to be willing to listen with an open mind, or a great idea can float right past them unseen.

A Kodak employee invented the digital camera in 1975, but the marketing team didn’t listen when they were told it represented the future. Having filed for bankruptcy protection in 2012, Kodak is now a shadow of its former self.

These six qualities are essential personality traits for SMB owners. People tend to believe successful people find success on their own. However, the reality is these qualities lead success to them.